Air Hockey GamesDirect Source Games offers air hockey games for your gamesroom. Air hockey games are great fun, especially when you're playing with your kids. Our air hockey games are fun to have around. Air hockey tables come in different sizes. They also come with manual scoring or with electronic scoring. Perfect for your gamesroom. Toy hockey games have been part of the Canadian scene since the days of the Great Depression. While these games can be divided into several categories (including board games, magnetic hockey, air hockey, bumper hockey and knock hockey), the image that usually comes to mind when one thinks of table top hockey is that of a miniature ice rink with players mounted on small spikes spinning and moving with the twist of their steel rods. The earliest type of these mechanical hockey games was built by Donald H. Munro, Sr. in his Toronto home in 1932-33. Made of wood and scrap metal found in his neighborhood, Munro built his first game as a Christmas present for his children at a time when he could not afford to buy gifts. Soon after, Munro built a handful of these games on consignment for the Eaton's department store in Toronto. They turned out to be an instant success. These early games, referred to as "the wooden game" by collectors, were produced every year until 1955. During this period of 22 years, many improvements were made in the playing quality and appearance.
The televising of NHL games during the 1950s and the league's expansion in 1967 greatly enlarged the North American market for table top hockey games. Whereas thousands of games had been sold previously, the numbers were now beginning to reach the hundreds of thousands and were climbing every year. To meet the rising demand, both Munro Games and Eagle Toys were sold to U.S. companies in September of 1968—Munro to Servotronics and Eagle to Coleco. Their dominance of the Canadian and American markets would continue—with games growing larger (24" x 34") and prices ranging up to 30 and 40 dollars during the 1970s—until the advent of video games relegated table hockey to a "second choice" toy item. By the late 1980s, a resurgence of table hockey occurred with Irwin Toys acquiring Coleco's tooling and companies like Stiga (a Swedish firm that had long been selling their games in Europe), Playtoy/Remco, Radio Shack, and Kevin Sports developing new games in North America. A Wayne Gretzky-endorsed game was introduced by Kevin Sports in 1990, selling for $120. Bubble top hockey games of the type found in bars, arenas, and other venues have also become very popular. In recent years, a deluxe table hockey game in Greenwich, New York ("TableHockey" by Rick Benej) retail for about $700 U.S. by Steve Farrar
|
